


Five Moments

by yezh (kirpee)



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Brotp, Gen, Platonic Female/Male Relationships, Platonic Soulmates, Slice of Life, i guess?, mentions of clint
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-06
Updated: 2015-04-06
Packaged: 2018-03-21 12:05:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3691668
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kirpee/pseuds/yezh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five moments when Steve and Natasha loved each other.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five Moments

**Author's Note:**

> I absolutely love love love the idea of Steve and Natasha as squishes (aka, like, platonic soulmates.)
> 
> First time posting anything to the Avengers fandom so please be gentle with concrit (which is greatly appreciated!!)
> 
> Please enjoy!

1

 

Steve found Natasha in his living room, still in her standard mission clothing with a bruise starting to bloom around her right eye and down her right cheek.

“Natasha?” Steve said.

Natasha looked up. “Steve, hi.” She didn’t sound like herself. Steve could tell that she was trying to force her normal, unflappable demeanor.

“What are you doing here?” He asked, wondering why she was in his living room instead of at her own apartment or at Clint’s.

“I…” she started. She took a deep breath, steeling herself for what she was about to say. She wasn’t much for sharing personal information, even if she knew someone for years and years and years. “I didn’t want to be alone.”

That was… new. Steve wasn’t used to Natasha being… open and vulnerable like she was now. And it confused him even more that she was in _his_ apartment. Out of everyone, Steve would have thought she would go to Clint’s. They shared the most history, not to mention the fact that they were basically connected at the hip most of the time.

Steve gestured to his kitchen table. “Please, sit. I’ll get you something warm to drink.”

Natasha sat at the table and Steve busied himself with making two cups of tea. “Why aren’t you at Clint’s?” he asked.

She sighed and ran a hand through her hair, wincing as her fingers scraped over a lump on her head. “I couldn’t go to him. He wouldn’t understand.”

Steve placed her mug in front of her. She mumbled _thanks_ under her breath. “Wouldn’t he understand the most?”

Natasha shook her head as Steve sat across from her. “No… We were picked for our jobs because we didn’t fail. And I did,” she said with a rueful smile, gesturing to the bruise on her face. “He can… He can turn off what would distract him. He doesn’t have to hear. I… I have to work to do that. And I failed tonight.”

Steve knew that opening up and being vulnerable wasn’t one of Natasha’s strongest points. He treasured the information she gave him and kept it secret inside him, never to tell anyone even though she didn’t as him to keep it a secret. He felt she would like it that way.

Steve nodded, understanding the feeling of not completing your mission in the intended way, sipping his tea. “You can stay the night. You take the bed.”

Natasha smiled. It wasn’t a big smile, just a subtle upward quirk of the corners of her mouth. “Thanks, Steve.”

 

2

 

Steve and Natasha didn’t know when it started, but they always had dinners together on Sunday night.

“So, Captain America, are you a communist?” Natasha asked in a mock newscaster voice as she leant against Steve’s counter, using a raw green bean as a microphone.

Steve laughed. “So you’ve been watching FoxNews, I take it?”

Natasha took a bite of the green bean. “It’s everywhere.” She made a rainbow gesture with her hands. “Captain America or Captain Commie: The Cap Forgets God.” she quoted.

“It must be you,” Steve joked, taking on a terrible fake Russian accent, “you’re corrupting me with your Russian communist propaganda.” He paused for a moment, looking down at the pot of pasta he was stirring. “You know, God wasn’t in our pledge of allegiance or on our money when I was a boy,” he said, pointing at Natasha with the spoon he was using to stir their pasta.

“You are wrong,” Natasha joked in a terrible imitation of a southern accent. “This is a Christian nation and God has been a part of it since we declared indie-pendence from those British bastards.”

Steve just chuckled and shook his head. The two lapsed into a comfortable silence before Natasha said, “At least you get interesting headlines.”

“Yours are interesting. How could anyone forget the great Black Widow Wears Weather Appropriate Clothes fiasco of summer 2013?”

Natasha rolled her eyes. “Still, I wish I had headlines that weren’t about my clothes.”

Steve hummed, feeling Natasha’s frustration. Rarely did he see a headline that wasn’t centered on her body, clothes, hair, etc.

“And when I am in a headline that’s _interesting_ , I’m tacked on with you or Tony or… someone _male_ ,” she continued before sighing, “I’m tired of being a footnote.”

He looked at her for a moment before offering her his hand. She took it, feeling small compared to the super soldier. He gave her hand a reassuring squeeze. “You are more than a footnote,” he said with his practically patented Steve Rogers sincerity. 

Natasha smiled. This time, so different from the first night she stood in his apartment, it was less subtle. A closed-lipped smile that made the small dimples right above her chin appear. “Thanks, Steve.”

 

3

 

It began after dinner when Natasha was looking over Steve’s record collection. “Do you have anything that’s not vinyl?” she asked, running her fingers over the fading vinyl covers.

“Hey, vinyl is _timeless_ ,” Steve said as he emerged from the kitchen, Natasha’s vodka tonic and his Gibson in the other.

Natasha laughed under her breath as she looked at Steve’s drink. “A martini? Could you have picked a more feminine drink?”

He frowned at Natasha as he handed her drink to her. “First, this is a Gibson, not a martini. Notice the onions instead of olives. Second, cocktails were very masculine in my time.” He took a pointed sip of his cocktail.

She laughed and turned back to his records.

She pulled a Frank Sinatra album out. “Isn’t Sinatra a little after your time?”

Steve walked over and looked at the record. “Sinatra was around, he just didn’t record much.”

He took the record out of its sleeve and placed it on the turntable. The beginning notes of “I’ve Got You Under My Skin” playing. Steve held out his hand to Natasha. “Care to dance?”

Natasha took his hand and he pulled her in close. His arm snaked around her waist and she rested her head against Steve’s chest, fitting perfectly into the juncture where his neck met his shoulder. Her right hand held her drink, which was curled next to her lips, resting on his chest, while her left arm curled around his waist.

The two swayed a little too slowly for the beat of the song, instead swaying to Steve’s heartbeat. It beat slowly and steadily when he was resting.

_Ba-bump. Ba-bump. Ba-bump._

 

4

 

“What do you mean you’ve never seen _Fight Club_?” Natasha asked, shocked and appalled.

Steve shrugged. “I’ve been frozen for 70 years. I didn’t have time to watch _Fight Club._ Or any other movies, for that matter.”

Natasha crossed her arms. “We are fixing this,” she said with a tone that Steve knew he couldn’t argue with. “Let’s go to the supermarket.”

He cocked an eyebrow. “Why?”

“We’re staying up all night,” she said as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “We need food.”

\--

“This isn’t right,” Steve said as Natasha entered the SHIELD credit card’s number into Amazon to purchase their movies. “That card is for emergencies and weaponry.”

Natasha rolled her eyes. “This is an emergency, old man. We need to bring you up to modern cinematic times.”

“I don’t think that counts a—“

“Shut up, it’s starting,” Natasha said. She opened a can of RedBull and handed one to Steve. The strange electronic rock started sounding through the speakers as _Fight Club_ ’s title sequence flashed across the screen.

\--

“This is entirely inaccurate,” Steve complained a couple hours later. The two had graduated to _Inglorious Basterds_.

“What is?” Natasha asked. Her head was tucked into the crook of his neck, legs swung up onto the couch, and Steve’s arm around her shoulders.

“Everything!” Steve said. “I was there, this is not what World War II was like.”

“There are Nazis,” She pointed out with a chuckle. “I’m pretty sure there were Nazis in World War II.”

“Okay, yes. But no one was running around scalping Nazis.”

“As far as you know.”

“It’s still terribly inaccurate.”

Natasha scoffed and rolled her eyes.

 

5

 

Steve and Natasha crashed into his apartment, both exhausted beyond believe.

“That was rough,” Natasha sighed, running a hand through her hair.

Steve nodded in agreement, too tired to speak. On the verge of collapsing and sleeping for another 70 years, he said, “I’m going to bed. You can stay if you like.”

Natasha walked over to the couch. “My turn on the couch,” she said, flopping onto it unceremoniously.

Steve didn’t want to argue. He didn’t have the energy for it and it seemed like Natasha was comfy enough anyway. “You know where your toothbrush is.”

She grunted an affirmation.

“Night, Nat,” Steve yawned, moving toward the bedroom. He heard her mumble something that resembled a good night.

Steve stirred as he felt a slight shift in the mattress. “Hmm?” he hummed sleepily, having trouble keeping his eyes open for more than a second at a time.

“You awake?” Natasha whispered.

“Mhm,” he confirmed, already drifting back to sleep as he said it. “What’s up?”

“I couldn’t sleep,” Natasha said. “Can I…” she faltered. Steve knew something was up, it was rare that she wasn’t in control, even around him. “Can I sleep with you?”

“Yeah,” Steve said softly, shifting over slightly to make more room for her.

She crawled into the bed, settling down next to Steve. After a few minutes of lying there with nothing but the sound of their breathing, Natasha snuggled in closer to Steve’s side. His arm wrapped around her shoulders, his body acting like a safe and secure blanket.

“I think about it a lot, you know,” she said quietly after a long moment.

“About what?” Steve asked, voice low and drowsy.

“The night I showed up at your apartment the first time,” she said, “how I’m much less in control than I’d like to be.”

Steve hummed.

“I never felt at home after becoming… what I was,” Natasha continued. She doesn’t say her previous profession out loud, never does, at least not around Steve. It’s too much, he thinks. “Not even when I was with Clint.” She snuggled closer into Steve’s side, arm slinging across his chest.

“I feel at home here,” she whispered.

Steve craned his neck and pressed an awkward but tender kiss on the top of his head. “Welcome home, Natasha,” he whispered back.

**Author's Note:**

> Please ignore the cheeseball ending.
> 
> I hope I characterized these two alright. I'm the most nervous about Natasha. Again, concrit is very very much appreciated!!


End file.
